Sonic Underground, Episode 1.38: The ART of Destruction

Sonic Underground, Episode 1.38: The ART of Destruction

Original Air Date: October 20th, 1999

After previously gifting us with "Country Crisis," writer Laren Bright would return for another episode. "The ART of Destruction" had Robotnik fed up with his incompetent henchmen. He builds a new robot called ART – whose name is an extremely vague acronym for Artificial Robot Technology – that learns from its mistakes and can rebuild itself when destroyed. ART is soon sent on a quest to eliminate Sonic, Sonia, and Manic. (Who is feeling a little discouraged these days.) After listening to the band's sick riffs, ART realizes tyranny is wrong and decides to help the Resistance. A new villainous scheme is engineered to capture the hedgehogs and the turncoat robot. 

As far as "Sonic Underground's" various one-off characters go, ART has more potential than most. As a threat, he's outfitted with a bunch of laser blasters and cannons. He also has Doc Ock style tentacles. His ability to rebuild himself, displayed after he pulls himself out of a vat of molten steel and regenerates his body from scrap metal, is fairly intimidating. Having this durable murder-boy learn the errors of his way and start to fight against evil is potentially interesting too. ART's personality starts out as childish, including speaking in monosyllabic sentences which grow more nuanced the more he learns. The design is mediocre, as his robotic lips are slightly unnerving and his Christmas-y color scheme is garish but that's to be expected from "Sonic Underground." 

Yet, as with all things with this show, "The ART of Destruction" doesn't have the convictions to actually make these ideas work. All it takes is one overheard musical number for ART to go from bad to good. He says he learned about "freedom and friendship" after a single rock song! The siblings similarly grow attached to the machine over a very short period of time, which certainly strains believability. As is usually the case, any attempt at real emotion this show makes comes off as deeply corny instead. Hearing a robot, with a stereotypical halting voice, laugh at bad puns or spout platitudes about never giving up is more humorous than touching. 

And "touching" is what the episode is going for. "The ART of Destruction" concludes with the robot sacrificing himself so the triplets can escape the ol' shrinking room death trap. The scene is drawn out, making the situation seem less urgent. ART repeatedly says he can't leave the room without being crushed but, considering how slowly those walls are moving, it really seems to me he had time to escape. Mostly, it's the horribly trite dialogue he shares with Manic in these final moments that make me roll my eyes. Manic makes repeated references to being discouraged that the Resistance can ever stop Robotnik throughout the episode, which is mildly out-of-character for him. ART's sacrifice, somehow, renews Manic's heroic spirit. At best, it's awkwardly done. At worst, it's the show trying to wring pathos out of an underdeveloped character. Mostly, it just comes off as "Underground" favoring a vague moral lesson over actual decent storytelling. 

It's not just ART's robotic dialogue and the contrivances of the shoddy script that are stilted. "The ART of Destruction" is another episode with some really questionable animation. The scene where ART corners the hedgehogs in the factory features maybe the slowest laser beam I have ever seen in a cartoon. Shortly afterwards, Sonic seemingly uses his glowing medallion to float over a tub of molten steel over something. It's such an awkwardly framed and animated moment that I'm not entirely sure what's happening. ART may be a shapeshifter of sorts but the animators seem to use that as an excuse to have him randomly change size throughout these twenty-one minutes. 

And it just wouldn't be "Sonic Underground" without some weird shit that makes me uncomfortable. There's also a moment where Sleet and Dingo, disgraced and cast aside by Robotnik, are reduced to vacuuming up a dirty alley way. Dingo is, of course, transmogrified into a vacuum and seems to be eating the refuge he sucks up in this form. This is followed by him sneezing a massive blob of sticky goop on Sleet and, afterwards, Sleet shatters apart like cracked glass in what I'm assuming is a really poorly deployed visual pun. It's a random deployment of cartoon physics that ends a gross, bizarre scene on an especially baffling note. 

As we close in on "Underground's" final episode, I'll continue to assert that the songwriting/performing team have gotten slightly better at their job. Today's song, "The Sound of Freedom" is a bit of cheesy butt rock. The chunky drum beat and driving guitar work is not bad actually. The lyrics are corny as hell but fit the hyper-patriotic, aggro Dad Rock sound – Sonic literally shouts "Freedom!" several times throughout – the song is going for. I listened to it a few times and I kind of like it. It makes me want to drink a cold beer and dip some mozzarella sticks in marinara sauce. Again, the team focusing on writing in-universe, anti-Robotnik rock anthems for the Resistance produces music that is, if not good, at least less cringe-inducing than the genre leaping attempts at moral education that previously employed. 

There might not be much in the way of art to this particular episode but I also didn't completely hate it. At least it was trying a potentially interesting story. The execution wasn't very good but, with this show, you earn points for trying. If nothing else, it's better than that hillbilly shit Bright wrote last time. [5/10]